Somerville, MA (WFN) -- A professional pilot is slamming the lid on an old urban legend about the toilets on airplanes.

In the new book, "Ask The Pilot" (Riverhead Books), pilot Patrick Smith addresses the concern of "where does the waste go when you flush a toilet on a jet?"

Although there have been reports of lavatory contents falling on people from the skies, Smith says that is not the standard method of disposal.

He says all contributions to the airplane's plumbing are vacuumed into a tank and disposed of later by the ground crews at airports.

As to the reports of airplane-generated "blue ice" falling to the ground, pilot Smith says these are more likely the result of a malfunction -- such as the time a leak in a jet toilet's exterior nozzle caused runoff to freeze and drop on the home of a man in Santa Cruz, California.

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